Suffering From Severe Low Back Pain and Neuropathy

[The following is a true story of a patient from our office who suffered from Neuropathy. Names have been changed to protect our patient’s privacy.]

Meet Stephanie.

Stephanie suffers from low back pain and neuropathy. However, she is a typical average middle aged female like any other. She grew up playing sports, being active, and generally enjoying life. After slowing down some in her 20’s she moved on to get married. Steph ended up raising a healthy family of 4 children.

Along the way, Stephanie noticed that her low back would hurt from time to time. While it didn’t bother her much, she figured the symptoms would just go away on their own. Fast forward some time and the symptoms never really “went away” they just got quiet from time to time. In the Chiropractic industry, we call these “episodes” of pain. What Stephanie didn’t know is that she was developing a condition that would drastically affect the rest of her life.

Developing Neuropathy

This consistency of ON and OFF pain episodes began getting closer and closer together, lasting longer and longer each episode, and needless to say increasing in intensity each time. With the frequency, duration, and intensity of pain slowly increasing over time it’s as if Stephanie had no idea things were getting worse.

Think about when you’re gaining weight. You don’t really notice until one day you wake up, look in the mirror or put your pants on, and things are suddenly very different. Well this didn’t happen overnight, and neither does the development of what would be Stephanie’s life changing condition known as, Neuropathy.

A Sneaking Progression

While the pain progressed, unbeknownst to Stephanie, the location of her symptoms began to travel. In the body’s infinite wisdom, it’s attempting to disperse Stephanie’s pain into other regions of her body so that she can still function during normal activities of daily living. All the sudden her butt region began to hurt. Again, not enough to do something about it, but enough to be a mild annoying, literal, pain in the butt every day!

This pattern of mild symptoms presenting themselves, popping up in new regions, and shifting around her body, continued for some time. She wasn’t doing any new activities or anything particularly strenuous, so she figured all is well. “I’m just getting old,” she thought. Little did she know, her low back pain was getting worse, and now it was creating other problems in her body, like neuropathy.

Soon after the pain had spread throughout her leg she started developing a tingling sensation in her feet. This was very new, and very concerning. Stephanie’s mother and some extended family had a history of diabetes and she was familiar with diabetic neuropathy. So she thought it would be wise to get this new symptom checked out.

The Medial Industry Response

Following the blood test results from her medical doctor they determined Stephanie was pre-diabetic. Her levels of blood sugar toxicity were not elevated enough to be placed on medication and they decided to just monitor her levels. Relieved that she did not have diabetes or diabetic neuropathy, Stephanie, and her doctors, decided this was just her feet going numb from various positions she is in throughout the day.

“Don’t worry about it,” they told her, “it should go away.”

Similarly to the ON and OFF pain sensations, Stephanie started to develop ON and OFF tingling sensations in her feet. But as far as she knew, everything was fine, right? This continued just as her low back pain did many years ago and slowly increased in frequency, intensity, and duration over time. Stephanie’s body is trying its best to tell her…

“SOMETHING IS WRONG.”

But for all she knows, “it’s just a little ache, just a little tingle now and again.”

One day, Stephanie woke up in a panic. Her back didn’t hurt and her feet were not tingling! Praise God right? Why would Stephanie be panicking? Because her symptoms had gotten so bad, and so severe, that she couldn’t feel her legs!!

The feeling from her low back all the way into her feet had gone completely numb, as if she was wearing pants that removed the sensation from the skin. This was bad, really bad, and Stephanie started getting extremely nervous. She yelled for her husband who came running and they proceeded to the emergency room. Surely they could tell her what was wrong.

Following the emergency room visit Stephanie left with muscle relaxers, pain meds, and no answers. She was told to see an orthopedist and sent home. Following a visit with the Orthopedist, Stephanie left with MORE steroid medication, and again, no answers. She was told to see a Neurologist and sent home. Following the visit with the Neurologist, Stephanie left with MORE neurological medication, and again, NO ANSWERS. She was told she has Neuropathy and there is nothing more she can do.

What Happened Next Will Shock You…

With no cure, no answers, no hope, and a salad of pills every morning, the numbness from her back through her legs NEVER returned. Because she can’t feel ANYTHING from the waist down, Stephanie ended up getting wounds she had no idea about. These wounds turned into multiple infections in her feet. She had no idea she even had the open wounds, infections, or anything since she couldn’t feel anything. As a result of the infections she has gone through multiple surgeries to remove toes from her feet. She even lost her big toe, which is essential to normal gait function.

She told me, “If it wasn’t for my faith in God, I would be spinning into a depression or worse by now.”

I told Stephanie what she needed to hear this whole time. The only person who can fix this thing, is YOU. As a medical provider I have a responsibility to do what’s best for my patients. While I have the tools, skills, knowledge, and capability to treat patients for their conditions, ultimately, sharing those tools, skills, and knowledge gives the patient the capability of treating their own conditions and not become dependent on ME to provide it for them!

This is how we create long term solutions for our patients. And if you’re reading this article, for you as well. Just subscribe to our Facebook Page, The Wellness Center of Chester County, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter for regular updates on health related tips. If you’re really serious about making long term changes for your low back pain or neuropathy problem check out our Signature Wellness Program. Finally, if someone you care about needs to read this article or this blog series, share this article on your Facebook page and tag them. It can change their life! Share

How Did We Help Stephanie’s Neuropathy?

So we started from scratch! I told her, “Forget everything anyone has ever told you about this condition. Because it’s not working! You’re taking every medication under the sun and you still can’t feel anything from your waist down. That’s NOT OK!” So we started our exam on trying to identify the different mechanical reasons why this could be happening.

Come to find out, Stephanie has an extremely common condition. Neurological impingement originating from the lumbar spine stopping all neurological function from the point of impingement down. It had been present for so long, the nerves had lost complete sensory function. Needless to say, we started our treatment program that day.

With a little help from us along the way, Stephanie learned ways to manage her condition at home. As the program progressed, Stephanie experienced a miracle.

Every night she sleeps with her socks on. Midway through the night out of habit, she wakes up, kicks her socks off, and goes back to sleep. Well after a few weeks of managing her condition, she wakes up as usual, kicks her socks off, and BURSTS into tears.

For the first time in years, after doctors visit to doctors visit, pill after pill, and losing toes on her feet, she can feel the skin on her ankles as she kicks her socks off in the middle of the night! How INCREDIBLE is that!

Finding a Solution in A Broken System!

Needless to say, this is not a typical patient. But I tell her story because of how well it illustrates the BROKEN-ness of the current medical system we have. Doctors simply don’t know how or what to do for people with low back pain other than a prescription medication. This neuropathy problem should have been resolved WELL before she got ANY toes removed. And the greatest thing of all, I didn’t even do anything that spectacular for her. She did it all herself! With a little encouragement, guidance, and the wisdom of God by our side, Stephanie’s life is forever radically transformed. She is not dependent on me or any other medical provider to “manage” her condition, or to keep coming back for maintenance care, or to take a prescription drug for the rest of her life. Stephanie has her life back.

AND SO CAN YOU! If you haven’t checked out our Signature Wellness Program I encourage you to take a look and see what low back pain solution we’ve implemented for so many patients 

Stephanie, among many other patients of ours, are frustrated that the medical community leaves them high and dry when it comes to low back pain. The Signature Wellness Program I’ve developed is helping people every day in our clinic, but it’s not enough to reach the millions of people around the world suffering from low back pain. So I decided to write this blog series. We’ve been helping thousands of people every day to treat their own conditions with the contents that will be in this low back pain blog. I encourage you to check out the free information in our newsletter, video tutorials, self-diagnosis, and self-treatment kits as well. All of this can be found throughout our website at: wcofcc.com for FREE.

Let’s start a journey together.

During your reading of this low back pain blog you will learn strategies to discover the hidden causes of your pain. Once you identify the root of the pain, neuropathy, discomfort, or whatever problem you’re dealing with, there will be carefully laid out plans in place to show you how you can correct the problem in a very short amount of time. For the most part, you’ll find yourself following along in agreement, nodding your head, and thinking, “this makes sense.” However, I will say this. Your doctor, orthopedist, therapist, and even your Chiropractor may not be familiar with how or why these solutions are going to work. We’re going to get into the reasons why in the later articles of this low back pain blog series, so stay tuned, subscribe, and follow along on Facebook.

The story above is just one of many that helped me become an authority on low back pain solutions in our community here in Exton, PA. My office in a relatively small town and when word got out that Stephanie could feel her feet again and no more toes would have to be removed, it didn’t take long for the schedule to be booked solid.

While I enjoy being busy in my office, I found myself repeating a lot of the same things over and over again. So I developed a system of non-medical approaches that would help patients eliminate their stubborn low back pain for good. It’s how I came up with the popularized “The End of Low Back Pain” system and why I want to share it with you. I hope this low back pain blog series helps you enough to share it with someone you care about.

Just like Stephanie, you too can get rid of your low back pain and have a pain-free life. So let’s get started! 

See you next week for more information on how you can solve your low back pain problems. For more articles on this topic visit wcofcc.com/blog  Or subscribe to updates Here